AIIB Approves $500-mn Loan to India

In News

The Indian government and AIIB signed a COVID-19 Emergency
Response and Health Preparedness Project.

In-Detail

To fight against COVID-19, the Asian
Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) has approved $500 million loan
support to India for COVID-19 Emergency Response and Health Preparedness
Project..

The AIIB is headquartered at Beijing and the
project is the first-ever health sector support to India. The project is
co-financed by the World Bank.

The National Health Mission (NHM), National
Centre for Disease Control (NCDC), the Indian Council of Medical Research
together will work on this project.

The project will cover all the States and Union
Territories.

The project supports the needs of the infected
people, at-risk population, medical and emergency personnel and service
providers, medical and testing facilities and national and animal health
agencies.

The project will also provide immediate support
to enhance disease detection capacities, oxygen delivery systems and medicines
among others.

The project will enable the government to slow
and limit the spread of COVID-19 in India.

AIIB

The Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank
(AIIB) is a development multilateral bank.

It is established by the AIIB Articles of
Agreement and is headquartered in Beijing.

The mission is to improve social and economic
outcomes in Asia.

The operations of the bank started in January
2016 and have 102 approved members worldwide.

China is the largest contributor to the bank,
contributing USD50 million and India is the second-largest contributor country
with a contribution of USD 8.4 billion.

AIIB has created a COVID-19 Crisis Recovery
Facility.

To support the AIIB members from economic,
financial and public health pressures and recovery from the crisis, the bank
has funded USD5-USD10 billion.

India is one of the largest beneficiaries of
AIIB. The AIIB approved five projects with total loan support of USD
1.074billion.

Launched in the year 2013, National Health
Mission is an amalgamation of National Rural Health Mission (NRHM) and the
National Urban Health Mission (NUHM).

The objective of the programme is to strengthen
health systems in rural and urban areas, especially in reproductive, maternal,
neonatal, child and adolescent health (RMNCH+A) and communicable and non-communicable diseases.

Conclusion

The AIIB’s timely
assistance will help in building a resilient health system and strengthens
India’s capacity to effectively manage future disease
outbreaks.